March 01, 2023 | Tagged Motivation
Three Big Dangers To Avoid for You and Your Basketball Team
Here are the big three devastating dangers that can destroy you and your basketball team. Be vigilant to navigate these big three with wisdom.
Injury/health issues: Injuries can devastate you and your team. Many coaches at NBC Camps have said their debilitating injury, which took them out of competitive sports, was the most difficult challenge they had to face. Comfort during injury is essential for the road to healing. Trying to power through a devastating injury creates more pain down the road. Take time to deal with stress, injury, and trauma. The loss of a season due to the safety issues of COVID also applies to this.
When you experience pain or trauma through injury or emotionally devastating situations, your body will require you to attend to the pain. The question is will you attend it now or later? The longer you wait to appropriately address pain the more trouble it will cause you down the road.
Disunity/Gossip/Division: Nothing ruins basketball faster than a disunified team that is full of dissension and frustration. Here is an important truth- hidden abuse of power results in open violence. The root of the hidden abuse of power is ego and contempt. These are the seeds of disunity. Ego and contempt come from selfishness and self-interest. This is healed through service to others and humility. Humbleness is not thinking less of yourself but simply thinking of yourself less.
Losing: As unified as your team may be, losing is tough. It wears down the courage, the fight, and the will. If you have a team that is significantly less talented, you will lose often. Losing also has momentum. You have to turn the ship around and get your momentum moving in a different way. Start by creating more wins in practice and in the games. Work to win the moment, then you can win the minute, then the quarter-hour, the half-hour, and so on.
Begin to create small wins that create momentum in a new direction.
Research on championship games found that winning stays with you for a long time but losing is the most life-changing. Those who lose in the state games (the higher the stakes, the greater the pain), have more embedded and deep pain from this loss than winners have exhilaration and joy from their win. If your team loses in the tournament, do the work to comfort each other. This true work of being there for each other and walking through the painful loss well is the best way to help eradicate the potential life-altering repercussions a devastating loss can inflict. Work to create teams who can change the losing cycle and break the glass ceiling to become a legacy team.
About NBC Basketball
NBC Basketball cares about attending to the total athlete. Players are not machines and have the emotional intelligence to help teams to weather painful situations are the hallmarks of great programs and coaches. NBC Camps offer online training during the COVID crisis at NBC Connect.